Free The Icing on the Cake by Elodia Strain Page B

lights on me.
    Okay. It was bad enough that Rona was planning my best friend’s bridal shower instead of me. But now I was her underling. Now I had to report my progress to Rona Bircheck. My progress on the menu for my best friend’s bridal shower!
    Mom, Dad, and Isaac all looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to respond to Rona.
    “It’s going great,” I answered. It wasn’t a complete lie. I had bought a bridal magazine on the way home from the gym the day before. And I had intended to look through the magazine for tips on organizing the food for a bridal shower. It wasn’t my fault all the gorgeous dresses in the magazine distracted me from the task.
    “Good. Since the party is so soon, I was worried it might be a little bit difficult.”
    “Nope. Everything is going just fine,” I responded breezily.
    “So you’ve decided on a caterer then?” Rona asked.
    A caterer? I was planning on some nice fruit, veggie, and meat trays from the grocery store and a jumbo bag of Costco rolls. She was expecting me to get the party catered? “Oh, well, I haven’t found one yet, but I’m close,” I answered. It was basically true. Now that I knew I was supposed to be looking for a caterer, I was one step closer.
    “Good,” Rona said. “Oh, and I forgot to tell you, plan for about twenty people. And as far as the budget, I was thinking about ten dollars per plate, so that’s two hundred dollars. I can put in a hundred and you can put in a hundred.”
    “Okay,” I answered. “Anything for Carrie.”
    “Just don’t dilly dally too long,” Rona instructed, standing up from her seat abruptly.
    Dilly dally? Who says that?
    “We’d better go,” Rona announced.
    She looked toward Isaac who was still sitting comfortably on the couch. He looked at her like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He stood up slowly and thanked my parents for dinner.
    I opened my mouth to offer Isaac a ride home, but Rona interrupted me, almost as if she knew what I was going to say and she wanted to prevent me from saying it. “Thank you for the shortcake,” she said to my parents. She gingerly set her plate down on the coffee table and I noticed she hadn’t taken a single bite. This really bothered me for some reason. Probably because I would have happily eaten her serving.
    Rona made her way to the front door, and the rest of us staggered behind her. I was still trying to find the words to offer to drive Isaac home.
    “Goodnight Brother and Sister Pleasanton,” Rona said as she reached for the brass doorknob.
    To my disappointment, Isaac said good-bye to my parents as well.
    But then, after letting Rona open the door and walk out ahead of him, he spoke softly to me. “Will you be here for another twenty minutes?”
    I stared at him blankly. “Yeah, probably.”
    “Good. I’ll be back.”
    “What?” I asked, completely confused.
    But Isaac was already jogging toward the car, grinning at me over his shoulder as he went.

    After Isaac and Rona left, my parents and I cleared the chess set off the coffee table and set up a game of Scrabble in its place. Mom and I were in the process of telling Dad that tonsilectomist is not a word when the doorbell rang. Laughing at Dad, who was looking the word up in an online dictionary, I went to answer it. I swung the door open and the person on the doorstep immediately began speaking.
    “Hi, Annabelle. I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye the way I wanted to with Rona around, so I decided to come back.” It was Isaac, and he was a sight to behold.
    I blinked a few times. “You came back to say good-bye?”
    “Not quite this second, but yeah, basically.”
    I smiled a pleased smile and invited Isaac in.
    Dad, spotting Isaac, called out, “Tell my girls that tonsilectomist is a word.”
    Isaac looked at the board game on the coffee table and chuckled. “I definitely think I remember taking photos for an article about a tonsilectomist,” he said to Mom and me.
    I rolled my eyes